Cassius found himself a laserifle and climbed the crater
ringwall.
The fighting was close, grim, and positional. Rock by rock,
bunker by foxhole, his men flushed Dee’s and drove them back.
Man by man, they broke the Sangaree defense. The Legionnaires
invested all their skill and fury. Dee nearly fought them to a
standstill.
What had Michael said to make his people so damned stubborn?
Cassius wondered.
“Wormdoom, this is Welterweight. I’ve got my hands
on a prime chunk of ringwall rim real estate. Give me some big
guns.”
“You’ve got them, Welterweight.”
Finally, Cassius thought. A break. He ordered all the artillery
possible into the position Ceislak had seized.
The nets resounded with chatter about furious counterattacks and
dwindling ammunition stocks. Cassius decided to join Ceislak. The
man’s position had to be held. It provided a platform from
which the interior of the crater could be brought under fire.
He studied the fighting from the rim. It took time to fall into
patterns. He had nothing but weapons flashes by which to judge.
“I think that last one was their last
counterattack,” Ceislak told him. “We’re ready to
finish them.” Gesturing, he indicated the far rimwall. Heavy
weapons flashes had begun to appear there. Legionnaires were coming
over from the Shadowline side. Ceislak’s bombardment had
broken the stubborn defense of the ringwall.
A dwindling number of enemy weapons flashes indicated failing
powerpacks and munitions supplies on the other side.
“Looks like we might manage it,” someone said.
Walters turned slowly, wondering who had broken radio silence.
One of a pair of figures, just joining the crowd and barely visible
in the backflash of Ceislak’s weapons, raised a hand in
greeting.
“It’s me. Masato. I said it looks like we’ve
finally got them.”
“That’s Michael Dee down there,” Cassius
growled. “He’ll still have three tricks up his sleeve.
What the hell are you doing here? You’re the last
Storm.”
“It isn’t a private war,” was all Mouse said
by way of defending his presence.
Cassius turned back to the crater. The boy was his
father’s son. There would be no talking him out of
staying.
A flash illuminated the face of Mouse’s companion.
“Damn it, Mouse! What the hell’s the matter with you,
bringing a girl out here?”
Pollyanna reminded him of that niece he had lost during the
Ulantonid War. He felt strangely avuncular and protective. He was
startled by an insight into his own ambivalent feelings toward
Pollyanna. Tamra had meant a great deal to him.
The flashes on the far rim showed the Brightside troops making
good headway. Michael’s people seemed to be running out of
ammo fast. Good. “Looks like we won’t have to offer
terms.”
Mouse stuck with his previous contention. “She has as much
right to be here as anybody. Her
father . . . ”
“Was I arguing? I’ve heard all about it.” He
caught a ghost of something in the timbre of Mouse’s voice.
The little slut had gotten her hooks into another Storm.
“Let’s stick to business. It’s time to find out
if Michael’s ready to give up.”
Michael contacted him first.
One of Cassius’s officers called on Command One..
“Sir, I’ve got Dee on a public frequency asking to
parlay with Colonel Storm. What should I do?”
“I’m on the rimwall right now. Tell him he’ll
be contacted as soon as possible. And don’t let on about the
Colonel. Understand?”
“Yes sir.”
With Mouse and Pollyanna tagging along, Walters descended to his
crawler. He ran through the command nets, ordering his officers to
keep the pressure on hard. Several units reported the surrender of
individual human, Toke, and Ulantonid soldiers.
One commander reported, “Their munitions situation is so
desperate they’re taking small arms ammo from their troops
and saving it for Sangaree officers.”
“Good old Michael,” Cassius said. “Really
knows how to make and keep friends.”
He started to signal Dee, suddenly stopped. “I just had a
nasty idea.” He went across the command net again.
“Wormdoom. Gentlemen. I want a radiation scan on that crater.
These guys used a nuke on us once before.”
In two minutes he knew. There were two radiation sources not
identifiable as tractor piles. They were nowhere near any of
Dee’s heavy units.
“Looks like my dear old uncle was going to close the pass
after he made terms with Father.”
Cassius smiled.
“He’s in for a surprise.”
“He’ll be
asking merc terms, won’t he?” Mouse asked.
“Of
course. But he’s not going to get them. If I end up dealing
at all. I’m going to be against the wall hard before I let
Sangaree get out.”
“Better get hold of him before he panics.”
Cassius
found the band on which Michael was waiting. “Dee?”
“Gneaus? Where the hell have you been?” Only
Dee’s word choices betrayed his anxiety. His voice was
cheerful. “I’ve been waiting half an hour.”
Cassius silently mouthed, “He hasn’t caught on about
Twilight yet. That gives us the angle on him.”
“Set the hook and reel him in,” Mouse suggested.
“Been out directing artillery,” Cassius said into
the pickup. He kept the visual off so he would not correct
Dee’s presumption that he was speaking with Gneaus Storm.
“What you want?”
“Keep it on the edge of the band or he’ll recognize
your voice,” Mouse whispered. Cassius nodded, made a fine
adjustment.
“Terms. We’re beaten. I admit it. It’s time to
stop the bloodshed.”
Cassius controlled a snort. “What reason do I have for
giving them? We’re winning. We’ll have you wiped out in
a couple hours.”
“You promised . . . ”
“I didn’t promise your people anything. They
aren’t covered by any of the usual conventions anyway.
They’re not merc. They’re Sangaree hired
guns.”
“But . . . ”
“If you want to talk, come to my crawler. We’ll sit
down face to face.”
Dee crawfished. He wriggled. He squirmed. But Legionnaires now
held all the heights. Their artillery made an ever more convincing
argument.
“You think he’ll come in?” Mouse asked.
“Yep.” Cassius nodded. “He isn’t
finished, though. He’s got a trick or two up his sleeve yet.
Besides the bombs. If he wants to have any men left to help pull
whatever it is off, he’s got to get them out. He’ll
come trotting over like a bad little boy expecting to get his hand
slapped.”
“I’m going to call Blake.” Mouse cleared
another channel, spoke with the city. “Cassius, he did it.
City of Night and Darkside Landing are sending crawlers.”
Cassius felt a century younger, knowing there was a chance.
“What about those nuclears?”
“I’ve got a plan. Stand back and be quiet. I’m
going to call him again. Michael? You coming over here or
not?”
“All right. But you make sure nobody shoots me on the
way.”
“You’re clear. I’ll leave the carrier on as a
homer.” Walters gave orders for one crawler to be allowed to
leave the crater.
“Better watch him close,” Mouse said. “He
could have those bombs rigged to blow on signal. He won’t
give a damn if he loses his army.”
“Maybe not. But he’ll parlay first. Now listen
close. Here’s what I want. You two just be hanging around
here when he comes in. I’ll be back in the next section. You
cover him and make him get out of his suit. Make him get out of
everything, just in case. You don’t know what he might be
carrying.”
Which was exactly what Mouse and Pollyanna did while Walters
watched through the cracked door to the slave section. Stripping
with a great show of wounded dignity, Dee kept demanding,
“Where’s your father?”
Michael had grown gaunt during his sojourn on Blackworld. He had
spent so long in-suit that he was emaciated and pale. He shook
noticeably. His nerves seemed to have been stretched to their
limits.
Cassius watched, and searched his soul. He could find no
sympathy for Michael Dee. Dee had made this bed of thorns
himself.
He stepped into the command cabin. “Michael, you’ve
got one chance to live out the day.”
“Cassius!” Dee was startled and frightened.
“How the hell did you get over here? You’re supposed to
be in the Shadowline.” He whirled to face Mouse. “And
you’re supposed to be at the Fortress. What’s going on?
Where’s your father?”
“Tell us about the nuclears you’ve got planted up
there,” Cassius suggested. “And I might give you your
life.”
And immediately Walters found himself fighting an intense desire
to kill Dee. Wulf. Helmut. Gneaus. All the others who had died
because of this fool . . . But Storm’s
ghost whispered to him of his duty to his men, to the thousands
still trapped in the Shadowline.
He did not often run on his own emotions. He almost always ran
on the feelings and ideals of his dead commander. His own
inclination, at that instant, was to let the bombs blow and send
the Legion off in one huge, dramatic stroke. It would be like the
ancients sending their dead out to sea in a burning ship.
He had very little purpose left in life, he thought. Since
leaving the Shadowline he had not looked ahead, beyond surviving
long enough to exact revenge. He was no longer a man with
tomorrows.
“Tell me about those bombs, Michael. Or I’ll kill
you now, here.”
“You can’t.” Sly smile. “Gneaus
wouldn’t permit it.”
“Oh, my poor foolish friend,” Cassius said, wearing
his cruelest, most self-satisfied smile. “Have I got news for
you. Gneaus Julius Storm died leading a successful assault on
Twilight Town. You and yours are all mine now.”
Dee became more aguey and pallid. “No! You’re
lying.”
“Sorry, boy. He died at Twilight, along with Helmut,
Thurston, Lucifer, and your wife and sons.” Metallic chuckle.
“It was a classic bloodletting. And now you’ve got no
exits.”
Dee fainted.
“The circle closes, Michael,” Cassius said when Dee
recovered. “The cycle completes itself. The last revenges are
in the wind. Then it begins anew.” Wearily, Cassius drew the
back of his handless wrist across his forehead. “Those were
some of your brother’s last thoughts.”
Mouse picked it up. “A revenge raid on Prefactlas to even
scores with the Sangaree, and from the ruins a survivor returned
like a phoenix to exact a revenge of his own. Now Cassius is the
only survivor of the Prefactlas raiders. And of Deeth’s
people there’s only you.”
The word had come, while Michael was unconscious, that Navy had
caught up with the remnants of the fleet that had attacked the
Fortress. No quarter had been given. None ever was.
Though there was no physical proof, Cassius wanted to believe
that the Sangaree Deeth had died there. But there was no justice in
this universe. His hope might prove mere wishful thinking.
“You and me, Michael,” Cassius said. He laid a
gentle hand on Mouse’s shoulder. “Then it begins anew,
with Gneaus’s phoenix.”
He was sad for Mouse. The boy was filled with hatred for his
father’s killers. He had done some tall and frightful
promising during Michael’s unconsciousness. “Mouse, I
wish you wouldn’t. I wish you’d just let it be,”
he said.
A stubborn, angry expression fixed itself on Mouse’s face.
He shook his head.
“Michael? About the bombs?”
Cassius found himself a laserifle and climbed the crater
ringwall.
The fighting was close, grim, and positional. Rock by rock,
bunker by foxhole, his men flushed Dee’s and drove them back.
Man by man, they broke the Sangaree defense. The Legionnaires
invested all their skill and fury. Dee nearly fought them to a
standstill.
What had Michael said to make his people so damned stubborn?
Cassius wondered.
“Wormdoom, this is Welterweight. I’ve got my hands
on a prime chunk of ringwall rim real estate. Give me some big
guns.”
“You’ve got them, Welterweight.”
Finally, Cassius thought. A break. He ordered all the artillery
possible into the position Ceislak had seized.
The nets resounded with chatter about furious counterattacks and
dwindling ammunition stocks. Cassius decided to join Ceislak. The
man’s position had to be held. It provided a platform from
which the interior of the crater could be brought under fire.
He studied the fighting from the rim. It took time to fall into
patterns. He had nothing but weapons flashes by which to judge.
“I think that last one was their last
counterattack,” Ceislak told him. “We’re ready to
finish them.” Gesturing, he indicated the far rimwall. Heavy
weapons flashes had begun to appear there. Legionnaires were coming
over from the Shadowline side. Ceislak’s bombardment had
broken the stubborn defense of the ringwall.
A dwindling number of enemy weapons flashes indicated failing
powerpacks and munitions supplies on the other side.
“Looks like we might manage it,” someone said.
Walters turned slowly, wondering who had broken radio silence.
One of a pair of figures, just joining the crowd and barely visible
in the backflash of Ceislak’s weapons, raised a hand in
greeting.
“It’s me. Masato. I said it looks like we’ve
finally got them.”
“That’s Michael Dee down there,” Cassius
growled. “He’ll still have three tricks up his sleeve.
What the hell are you doing here? You’re the last
Storm.”
“It isn’t a private war,” was all Mouse said
by way of defending his presence.
Cassius turned back to the crater. The boy was his
father’s son. There would be no talking him out of
staying.
A flash illuminated the face of Mouse’s companion.
“Damn it, Mouse! What the hell’s the matter with you,
bringing a girl out here?”
Pollyanna reminded him of that niece he had lost during the
Ulantonid War. He felt strangely avuncular and protective. He was
startled by an insight into his own ambivalent feelings toward
Pollyanna. Tamra had meant a great deal to him.
The flashes on the far rim showed the Brightside troops making
good headway. Michael’s people seemed to be running out of
ammo fast. Good. “Looks like we won’t have to offer
terms.”
Mouse stuck with his previous contention. “She has as much
right to be here as anybody. Her
father . . . ”
“Was I arguing? I’ve heard all about it.” He
caught a ghost of something in the timbre of Mouse’s voice.
The little slut had gotten her hooks into another Storm.
“Let’s stick to business. It’s time to find out
if Michael’s ready to give up.”
Michael contacted him first.
One of Cassius’s officers called on Command One..
“Sir, I’ve got Dee on a public frequency asking to
parlay with Colonel Storm. What should I do?”
“I’m on the rimwall right now. Tell him he’ll
be contacted as soon as possible. And don’t let on about the
Colonel. Understand?”
“Yes sir.”
With Mouse and Pollyanna tagging along, Walters descended to his
crawler. He ran through the command nets, ordering his officers to
keep the pressure on hard. Several units reported the surrender of
individual human, Toke, and Ulantonid soldiers.
One commander reported, “Their munitions situation is so
desperate they’re taking small arms ammo from their troops
and saving it for Sangaree officers.”
“Good old Michael,” Cassius said. “Really
knows how to make and keep friends.”
He started to signal Dee, suddenly stopped. “I just had a
nasty idea.” He went across the command net again.
“Wormdoom. Gentlemen. I want a radiation scan on that crater.
These guys used a nuke on us once before.”
In two minutes he knew. There were two radiation sources not
identifiable as tractor piles. They were nowhere near any of
Dee’s heavy units.
“Looks like my dear old uncle was going to close the pass
after he made terms with Father.”
Cassius smiled.
“He’s in for a surprise.”
“He’ll be
asking merc terms, won’t he?” Mouse asked.
“Of
course. But he’s not going to get them. If I end up dealing
at all. I’m going to be against the wall hard before I let
Sangaree get out.”
“Better get hold of him before he panics.”
Cassius
found the band on which Michael was waiting. “Dee?”
“Gneaus? Where the hell have you been?” Only
Dee’s word choices betrayed his anxiety. His voice was
cheerful. “I’ve been waiting half an hour.”
Cassius silently mouthed, “He hasn’t caught on about
Twilight yet. That gives us the angle on him.”
“Set the hook and reel him in,” Mouse suggested.
“Been out directing artillery,” Cassius said into
the pickup. He kept the visual off so he would not correct
Dee’s presumption that he was speaking with Gneaus Storm.
“What you want?”
“Keep it on the edge of the band or he’ll recognize
your voice,” Mouse whispered. Cassius nodded, made a fine
adjustment.
“Terms. We’re beaten. I admit it. It’s time to
stop the bloodshed.”
Cassius controlled a snort. “What reason do I have for
giving them? We’re winning. We’ll have you wiped out in
a couple hours.”
“You promised . . . ”
“I didn’t promise your people anything. They
aren’t covered by any of the usual conventions anyway.
They’re not merc. They’re Sangaree hired
guns.”
“But . . . ”
“If you want to talk, come to my crawler. We’ll sit
down face to face.”
Dee crawfished. He wriggled. He squirmed. But Legionnaires now
held all the heights. Their artillery made an ever more convincing
argument.
“You think he’ll come in?” Mouse asked.
“Yep.” Cassius nodded. “He isn’t
finished, though. He’s got a trick or two up his sleeve yet.
Besides the bombs. If he wants to have any men left to help pull
whatever it is off, he’s got to get them out. He’ll
come trotting over like a bad little boy expecting to get his hand
slapped.”
“I’m going to call Blake.” Mouse cleared
another channel, spoke with the city. “Cassius, he did it.
City of Night and Darkside Landing are sending crawlers.”
Cassius felt a century younger, knowing there was a chance.
“What about those nuclears?”
“I’ve got a plan. Stand back and be quiet. I’m
going to call him again. Michael? You coming over here or
not?”
“All right. But you make sure nobody shoots me on the
way.”
“You’re clear. I’ll leave the carrier on as a
homer.” Walters gave orders for one crawler to be allowed to
leave the crater.
“Better watch him close,” Mouse said. “He
could have those bombs rigged to blow on signal. He won’t
give a damn if he loses his army.”
“Maybe not. But he’ll parlay first. Now listen
close. Here’s what I want. You two just be hanging around
here when he comes in. I’ll be back in the next section. You
cover him and make him get out of his suit. Make him get out of
everything, just in case. You don’t know what he might be
carrying.”
Which was exactly what Mouse and Pollyanna did while Walters
watched through the cracked door to the slave section. Stripping
with a great show of wounded dignity, Dee kept demanding,
“Where’s your father?”
Michael had grown gaunt during his sojourn on Blackworld. He had
spent so long in-suit that he was emaciated and pale. He shook
noticeably. His nerves seemed to have been stretched to their
limits.
Cassius watched, and searched his soul. He could find no
sympathy for Michael Dee. Dee had made this bed of thorns
himself.
He stepped into the command cabin. “Michael, you’ve
got one chance to live out the day.”
“Cassius!” Dee was startled and frightened.
“How the hell did you get over here? You’re supposed to
be in the Shadowline.” He whirled to face Mouse. “And
you’re supposed to be at the Fortress. What’s going on?
Where’s your father?”
“Tell us about the nuclears you’ve got planted up
there,” Cassius suggested. “And I might give you your
life.”
And immediately Walters found himself fighting an intense desire
to kill Dee. Wulf. Helmut. Gneaus. All the others who had died
because of this fool . . . But Storm’s
ghost whispered to him of his duty to his men, to the thousands
still trapped in the Shadowline.
He did not often run on his own emotions. He almost always ran
on the feelings and ideals of his dead commander. His own
inclination, at that instant, was to let the bombs blow and send
the Legion off in one huge, dramatic stroke. It would be like the
ancients sending their dead out to sea in a burning ship.
He had very little purpose left in life, he thought. Since
leaving the Shadowline he had not looked ahead, beyond surviving
long enough to exact revenge. He was no longer a man with
tomorrows.
“Tell me about those bombs, Michael. Or I’ll kill
you now, here.”
“You can’t.” Sly smile. “Gneaus
wouldn’t permit it.”
“Oh, my poor foolish friend,” Cassius said, wearing
his cruelest, most self-satisfied smile. “Have I got news for
you. Gneaus Julius Storm died leading a successful assault on
Twilight Town. You and yours are all mine now.”
Dee became more aguey and pallid. “No! You’re
lying.”
“Sorry, boy. He died at Twilight, along with Helmut,
Thurston, Lucifer, and your wife and sons.” Metallic chuckle.
“It was a classic bloodletting. And now you’ve got no
exits.”
Dee fainted.
“The circle closes, Michael,” Cassius said when Dee
recovered. “The cycle completes itself. The last revenges are
in the wind. Then it begins anew.” Wearily, Cassius drew the
back of his handless wrist across his forehead. “Those were
some of your brother’s last thoughts.”
Mouse picked it up. “A revenge raid on Prefactlas to even
scores with the Sangaree, and from the ruins a survivor returned
like a phoenix to exact a revenge of his own. Now Cassius is the
only survivor of the Prefactlas raiders. And of Deeth’s
people there’s only you.”
The word had come, while Michael was unconscious, that Navy had
caught up with the remnants of the fleet that had attacked the
Fortress. No quarter had been given. None ever was.
Though there was no physical proof, Cassius wanted to believe
that the Sangaree Deeth had died there. But there was no justice in
this universe. His hope might prove mere wishful thinking.
“You and me, Michael,” Cassius said. He laid a
gentle hand on Mouse’s shoulder. “Then it begins anew,
with Gneaus’s phoenix.”
He was sad for Mouse. The boy was filled with hatred for his
father’s killers. He had done some tall and frightful
promising during Michael’s unconsciousness. “Mouse, I
wish you wouldn’t. I wish you’d just let it be,”
he said.
A stubborn, angry expression fixed itself on Mouse’s face.
He shook his head.
“Michael? About the bombs?”